


Run Around

by BiCaptain



Category: Borderlands, RWBY
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Changing POV, F/F, Multi, Weiss and Ruby being dicks to each other, other characters to be added later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-05-17 13:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5871697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiCaptain/pseuds/BiCaptain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruby is trying to escape from her former employer, Weiss is trying to escape her father, Blake is trying to escape her past, and Yang just wants to drown in money and treasure.</p>
<p>Or: A Borderlands AU for RWBY</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ruby

**Author's Note:**

> My second attempt at a multi-chapter fic (I need to update my other fic soon). I actually have a full plan this time around, so hopefully this one goes better.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT: I re-read the chapter and found that I REALLY hated it, so I re-uploaded a whole new chapter one. I'm working on a chapter two right now.

Ruby sat at the train station for what felt like hours. Her leg was jiggling up and down, she was biting her fingernails, she was rocking back and forth, pretty much every habit that she trained herself for months to stop. 

Everything was awful. Everything was awful and horrible and agonizing and she wanted to go home. She hated herself for having morals when she was working for a fucking  _corporation_. All she wanted was-

She jerked when she felt moisture on her hand. She opened her eyes and realized that she was crying. She was crying in public at a train station when she needed to be _discreet_. She roughly wiped the tears away from her eyes and forced herself to take deep breaths as she saw the train arriving. She picked up her luggage with a heavy sigh and boarded the train.

The train was a _lot_ emptier than she thought it would be, and Ruby couldn't remember the last she felt so relieved. She walked down a few cars, passing one or two people every now and then, and sat down in a completely deserted car. When the train began to move, Ruby let out a breath she had no idea she was holding. She closed her eyes and focused on releasing all of the tension within her body. She started from the top and moved down, just like her mother showed her when she got too stressed. She unclenched her jaw, relaxed her shoulders, slouched her back, uncurled her hands, spread her legs, and breathed as deeply as possible the whole while.

She will be fine. She will meet up with Yang and Uncle Qrow. Her father and Zwei will be safe and sound at home. No one will die. Everything will be okay. She just had to convince herself.

Ruby repeated this to herself until she could feel her eyelids become heavier, and fell into a light sleep. She jerked awake when she heard the door to the train car open. She sat up and leaned into the aisle to find the new passenger.

The first thing Ruby noticed about the newcomer was her long and stark white hair that draped along the side of her body in a high side ponytail. The next thing she noticed was her obnoxiously bright white cloak. Ruby had to beat down the intense urge to kick dirt onto it.

The intensely white girl marched down the aisle with incredible determination. Ruby barely pulled her head back before she could get whacked by the girl's body. She plopped down into a seat a bit further from Ruby on the opposite side of the train. She looked like she was trying to go about it elegantly, but her movements were all too stiff and robotic to be considered fluid and natural. Ruby could see her head jerking back and forth in minuscule movements between the windows on both sides of the train. 

If this girl was trying to be inconspicuous, she needed a whole lot of practice. Well, not like Ruby was any better at it, but still.

Ruby knew it was better to leave the girl alone with her fear and paranoia. It wasn't her business, and she really needed to have as few people as possible acknowledge her existence.

She knew this, but when she saw the girl hunch her back and pull her legs up to her chest, Ruby couldn't in good conscience leave her to suffer alone. She _hated_ her conscience and wanted to shoot her conscience in its stupid face.

Ruby rose out of her seat and walked up to the girl. As she got closer she could hear her breathing shakily, crying but trying to keep it silent. Ruby groaned internally and could feel her face twisting into a grimace. She _really_ didn't want to deal with this, but she was already next to her and the last thing she wanted was this girl to think she's creepy and shoot her or whatever. It was Pandora, anything could happen.

"Hey, uh, are you... alright?", Ruby asked in as gentle of a voice as possible. She didn't want to startle the girl.  The girl was startled anyway, if the way she jumped away and whipped her head toward Ruby was any indication. They both stayed still, staring at each other.

The girl was pretty. Like, _really_ pretty. Her eyes were light and pale blue and so _big_ , and were still gorgeous when surrounded by puffy and red skin. Her face was slender and angular, her nose straight and sharp. Everything about her face and her appearance was bright and stark and sharp. She was easily one of the prettiest girls Ruby had ever seen, and she mentally high-fived her conscience for doing something good for her for once.

The girl looked Ruby over and scoffed harshly in disgust. She crowded toward the side of the bench and stared pointedly out the window.

"I don't know who you are, bandit, but I'm not in the mood," she said. She lifted her hand and flicked it back and forth at Ruby. "Go away before you get your awful stench all over me."

Ruby had never wanted to punch someone in the throat so much in her entire life. She hated this girl and she vowed to kick her conscience's ass.

"Oh sorry, Princess, for trying to see-"

The next thing Ruby knew, she was flying through the air after hearing a deafening boom.

When she was able to focus, she saw a giant smoking hole in the train where she used to be.

Bandits.

She was on Pandora for _five fucking minutes_ , and she was already being attacked by bandits.

How has this planet not been blown to smithereens yet?

Ruby let out an awful, garbled groan as she smacked down onto the ground. She was in the worst pain she had ever experienced in her whole life. She couldn't hear anything, her body was filled with a mind-destroying amount of pain, and she sincerely wondered how she was still conscious.

Through the pain, she was barely able to make out a feeling of pressure on her side. She struggled to open her eyes and looked up to find her robot, Crescent Rose, poking her in the side with her scythe.

"Cres...Rose...He...Health syrin..." Ruby croaked with as much strength as she could muster.

Crescent Rose nodded her head, turning around. She sliced the bandits around them with her scythe. The ground near Ruby was soaked in their blood and entrails. She noticed some of the blood slowly creeping toward her, and struggled to move away from the puddle. She would  _not_  get soaked in bandit blood, no, she would not allow the crappy universe to add insult to literal injury. The blood rushed toward her faster than she could shimmy her body away. Oh god, Crescent Rose needed to come right now with that health syringe.

When the blood came within inches of her face, Ruby felt the familiar stab of the health syringe in her side. She felt the liquid rushing through her with warmth. She could feel her pain diminishing, her strength returning, and pushed herself away from the blood with all of her strength.

"YES! Oh, thank you, Crescent Rose, tha-" Ruby cried out, and abruptly stopped when she felt warm liquid on her hands and butt. Ruby slowly lifted her shaking hands to her face. They were drenched in crimson and dripped onto the front of her pants. She slowly craned her head to look behind her, and came face to face with a giant puddle of blood and dismembered corpses of bandits.

These were her favorite and comfiest pair of combat pants. She didn't know whether to laugh, vomit, or sob.

Before she could sink further into despair, she heard someone cry for help. She whipped her head toward the sound. The jerk on the train struggled against a psycho. He was leaning over her, buzzsaw inches from her face. She gripped his arm and tried pushing him away, crying for help.

Ruby sighed. That girl was a giant douche, but she didn't deserve to get sliced to death by a psycho.

"Crescent Rose, pistol please," she said, hand held out to the floating robot. Crescent Rose's chest compartment opened. She reached in and grabbed a pistol, closing her compartment and handing the pistol to Ruby.

"Thank you!" she chirped. She shifted one leg back, gripped the pistol in both hands, arms straight but not locked, leaned her head on her bicep, closed one eye, and pulled the trigger. The psycho's head jerked, his entire body stiffened, and he fell on the girl from the train. She squacked and tried to push the corpse off of her, and Ruby giggled quietly to herself. Revenge felt amazing.

Ruby made her way over to the girl, lowering her goggles over her eyes as she stepped over corpses. She shot bandits and psychos that ran toward her, and Crescent Rose sliced up the ones that tried to sneak up on Ruby.

Despite the dismal bad luck she had today, doing things she was really good at was always therapeutic for Ruby, and Ruby was _really_ good at shooting. Her favorite part about making weapons was testing them out herself, and she remembered staying in the company's shooting range for hours on end, shooting and shooting until a hesitant janitor told her it was one in the morning.

Before Ruby could make herself feel sad about not being able to go back to that shooting range, she found herself right next to the jerk from the train. She managed to get the corpse off of her and was furiously trying to brush the dirt and blood off of her once pristine white shirt and skirt. The girl paused in her furious brushing when she noticed Ruby's presence. She whipped her head up to meet Ruby's eyes, anger and tears shining in her piercing blue eyes.

"What the _hell_ do you want, _bandit_?" she spat at Ruby.

Ruby closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In just one sentence, the girl demolished all of Ruby's calm. When she calmed down enough, Ruby opened her eyes and tossed the pistol at the girl. She fumbled with the gun, managing to catch it with the crook of her elbow.

"Crescent Rose, please open you weapon compartment," she asked. Crescent Rose opened her chest compartment, and Ruby reached to take out a long assault rifle, a sniper rifle that was _much_ taller than her, and her folded up turret. She threw it on the ground, and it unfolded to form a boxy turret with two long wings that almost reached the ground. The barely there blue hue of a shield formed, surrounding Ruby and the train girl. When the turret was done unfolding, a dog head made from metal sprang out from the top and made a synthetic sounding bark.

Ruby loved Robo-Zwei with all of her heart.

"What's your name?" Ruby asked as she clipped her assault rifle onto her back strap.

"Why should I tell you?" the girl spat, predictably.

"It's getting annoying to think of you as "the train girl" and "that girl from the train" and "that ungrateful jerk". It's more of a convenience thing for me. And besides," she said, kneeling on the ground to prepare her sniper rifle, "we might become best friends after this. Kinda hard not to when you survive a bunch of waves of bandits together."

The girl's face twisted in a look of incredulousness, a scoff escaping her open lips. She crossed her arms, pulling her left shirt sleeve up higher. After a long moment of Ruby settling on the ground with her sniper rifle, the girl sighed and slouched, giving up her silent act.

"Weiss," she bit out.

"Nice to meet you, Weiss!" Ruby chirped, hoping to annoy Weiss with cheerfulness. "I'm Ruby. This beautiful floating robot here is Crescent Rose, and this adorable turret here is Robo-Zwei."

"You named your killing machines," Weiss said, incredulous and a little bit concerned.

"Well, duh! I'm not gonna spend years making them for myself only to _not_  name them," Ruby scoffed. A loud metallic thud made them both jump. Ruby scooched her body down until she could look through her rifle's scope. Through the giant cloud of dust she could see a _shit ton_  of bandits rushing towards them in gray jeeps that were stained with blood and viscera.

Ruby felt herself smile a little. She moved until the crosshairs of her rifle were lined up with the head of the driver in the middle jeep. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and pulled the trigger, prepared for the kick-back. The driver's head flew back and his body went limp. The jeep skidded out of control, knocking into some of the other jeeps. They tumbled until they feel off the ravine the left.

Ruby fist-pumped and almost stood up to jump up and down.

"Jesus, you may be even _worse_  than the bandits," she heard Weiss say, but she didn't care. It was Ruby's first time on a battlefield, and she was doing _awesome._

"Alright, when they come close, Robo-Zwei and Crescent Rose here should do a lot of the heavy lifting, but be prepared just in case, Weiss."

"Don't tell me what to do," Weiss snapped, but she kneeled on the ground and prepared herself to shoot anyway. Her arms were locked, showing Ruby that Weiss had never shot a gun before. Weiss was gonna smack herself in the face when she shot the pistol.

Ruby grinned, and looked through the scope of her rifle, waiting for the bandits to come.


	2. Blake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally planning on doing the first four chapters in the order of Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang, but after writing Blake and Weiss's chapters I found that Blake's fit a little better in being the second chapter.  
> This is un-betaed, since I don't have one. I hope you all enjoy!

Blake has had more close encounters with death than she cared to acknowledge; Bullets that narrowly missed a major artery, blades that were a hairsbreadth away from decapitating her, and grenades that exploded when she was barely out of range.

Blake had always believed herself to be exceptionally lucky. The fact that she was slowly succumbing to starvation made her retract that belief vehemently.

The sun was viciously beating down on her, making her pour sweat. She trudged through the hellish dessert that was Pandora, nothing but sand and sun in sight. She was completely in the open, exposed and ridiculously vulnerable. Every swallow felt like her throat was getting stabbed, and she was almost bent in half from stomach pain.

She needed shade. She needed to find a town, or a house with some food at the very least. But the assassins were _relentless_. They have been after her for _weeks_ , didn't let her stop for more than a second before attacking her again and again.

They had to be from the White Fang. No other assassins would have been able to keep up with her. Then again, Blake was sloppy from pure exhaustion and hunger. The longer they kept this up, the less careful Blake would become in covering up her tracks.

She hoped they killed her before starvation and thirst did though. If Blake was going to die, she wanted to die fighting.

Blake's foot caught in a pit in the sand. She collapsed harshly onto the ground, her legs too weak to keep her upright. The sand burned against her face and arms. It felt like molten lava, but she couldn't push herself up even if she tried. 

Blake closed her eyes and sighed through her nose. She was going to die lying in a heap on the sand because she was too weak to even push herself up. She would feel ashamed if she had the strength to feel.

"Uh, hey, lady on the ground? Are you dead?"

Blake summoned all of her strength to open her eyes and look up. There was a figure above her, blocking a bit of the intense sunlight. Blake's vision was blurred, but she could make out the outline of a woman, a woman with big and wild hair. Everything else was too blurred for her to make sense of.

"... Here to... kill me...?" Blake wheezed. Talking was even more painful than she thought it was. It felt like she exhaled fire mixed with broken glass.

"Nah, the opposite actually," the woman replied nonchalantly. "You look, like, really rough. I mean, _really really_  rough."

Blake tried to chuckle, but it came out as a gust of air.

The woman dropped to a crouch beside Blake, a bright grin spread across her face. "You still have a sense of humor, that's awesome! You're not as close to dying right now than I thought! So, listen, I have a car not far from here. I can take you to the nearest town and get you food and other stuff you need to not die. How does that sound?"

In the back of her mind, Blake knew that the woman wanted something from her. No one on Pandora did _anything_  without an ulterior motive, and Blake didn't want to owe _anyone_ on the godforsaken planet.

Every other part of her, however, was stuck on the promise of food.

"Guh... Good..."

The woman clapped her hands together, her grin growing even wider. "Awesome! Okay, I'm not really in the mood to carry you back to my car, so I'll be _right_ back, okay? Okay."

She jumped back up onto her feet, running effortlessly on the sand towards her car. She looked back over her shoulder and yelled, "Don't die yet, sand lady!"

Blake smiled weakly to herself. She really hope the "sand lady" thing didn't stick for very long. Well, she wasn't planning on staying around long anyway. As soon as she had some strength back she would leave. The woman was nice enough, but years of experience showed Blake that even the nice and personable people on Pandora were cold-blooded killers.

Sooner than she expected, Blake heard the sound of wheels moving over the sand. An orange, beat up jeep pulled up a few feet away from Blake. The woman hopped out of the vehicle before it fully stopped and ran over to Blake. She scooped her arms under Blake's back and under her knees, lifting her up with literally no trouble at all. Blake's eyes widened at the woman's strength. When she said she wasn't in the mood it didn't mean that she couldn't do it, like Blake had assumed. 

Blake stared wide-eyed at the woman. She had scars all over her face. Some were from cuts, most likely knives or blades. Others were from burns, larger and more pink and jagged than the scars from cuts. Her eyes were a vibrant purple, and her hair was large and golden and wild. Who was this woman?

"As you can see," the woman said, with no strain present in her voice _at all_ , "my car is one of those Bandit Technical jeeps, meaning that the passenger seat is a seat with a big gun up high."

She turned her gaze down towards Blake, a smile still on her lips. "Seeing as how you're all near death and stuff, I don't want to put you up high where you'll most _definitely_ drop out at seventy miles an hour. You're gonna go in the hatch at the back of the car, which is still pretty easy to fall out of, but I'm asking you to find _some_  strength to hold onto the handles there, okay?"

Without waiting for Blake to reply, the woman gently placed Blake in the hatch. She adjusted her until Blake was sitting with her back to the corner right behind the driver. She even placed Blake's hands on the two handles herself, one on the right side of the hatch, the other directly behind the driver's seat.

"Alright, everything looks good," the woman chirped, "I'm Yang, by the way. What's your name? Unless you want me to keep thinking of you as 'sand lady'."

Blake froze. She didn't know if she wanted to give her name to the wo - Yang. She was a total stranger, a stranger on _Pandora_ with _ridiculous strength_. She was nice enough, but Blake didn't want to give Yang any way to track her should she get angry when Blake disappeared.

"One of those private types, huh?" Yang said, snapping Blake out of her thoughts, "It's okay. It's _Pandora_ , I understand the whole being paranoid and guarding your name and stuff. I was like that when I first came here."

Yang backed away and headed to the driver's side of the car, patting Blake's shoulder on the way. Blake heard the driver's side door open and slam shut. The engine roared to life, and Blake almost fell when the car started to move. She used all of her strength to clutch onto the handles. She was glad she tied her hair in a bun before wandering out into the desert a few hours ago. Her hair whipping her in the face wasn't something she needed right now.

Yang's hair whipping her in the face, though, was something she needed even less. She was going too fast for Blake to be heard over the wind, though, and Blake didn't have enough strength to shout, so she succumbed to being hit continuously with blonde locks. Best to not open her mouth anyway.

Blake squinted at the desert, trying to not get sand in her eyes. There was nothing but orange sand and the occassional (probably deadly) green plant. The scenery and the wind would have made her feel tranquil, if she still wasn't in complete agony.

"Here it is, New Haven!" Yang shouted over the wind.

The car started to slow down, and Blake lolled her head back with a big grin on her face. She would finally have food and water. She couldn't remember the last time she felt this overjoyed.

The car moved into the town and stopped right by the gate to the town. Blake looked up and saw the words "New Haven" on a piece of black metal, held up by two long metal poles. The rest of the gate was made of the same black metal. It probably looked more elegant in the past, before bullets and time scratched and tore the black paint off of the metal, silver peeking out in random areas.

She heard a car door slam and the crunch of dirt. Yang stopped in front of Blake, arms crossed over her chest, her scarred face still sporting the same big grin she seemed to always have.

"We're here, sand lady. It's kind of shit, but what isn't on Pandora?"

Yang held her hand out to Blake. Blake took it gladly, clasping tight onto her hand. Yang supported her effortlessly as she struggled to scooch out of the hatch of the jeep. Yang let go of her hand when Blake's feet hit the dirt beneath them, her arm moving gracefully under her arm and around her back, resting her hand on Blake's other shoulder. She threw Blake's other arm across her shoulders, her grip firm and warm.

"The restaurant isn't very far, but I don't think I wanna see you fall down into the dirt and stuff. It's bad enough that you got sand all over your black outfit, don't need to add dirt to it."

Blake wheezed out a laugh, and let Yang pretty much carry her over to the restaurant. The town really was kind of shit. All of the buildings looked ridiculously ragged and beat down. Almost all of the metal had rust on it, and every single item outside was covered in dirt. The people were covered in dirt and sand and a deadly array of weapons, most with their faces covered to protect them from sand being whipped up from vehicles. No one paid them a whole lot of attention, but Blake expected that; No one on Pandora really cared about other people unless said other people were shooting at them or looked wealthy.

"Ah, there it is."

Blake looked up at... a food stand.

"This the... restaur... ant...?" she croaked, a small smile on her lips.

Yang chuckled a little, "About as close to a restaurant as you'll get on Pandora. It's actually got some seating areas around it. Plus they serve real great skag meat, almost can't tell you're eating one."

Yang gently placed Blake in one of the chairs near the food stand. She immediately leaned on the small round table in front of her, her head dropped down low near the table. She lifted her head back up when she heard Yang pull the chair across from her out with her leg and plopped down into it. She placed a bottle of water in front of Blake and held out a kabob of meat to her. 

With a swiftness she hadn't had in weeks, she nearly tore open the bottle drank, forcing herself to drink slowly. It burned, but Blake could feel her throat start to return to normal. The stabbing feeling went away little by little, until Blake finished the water bottle, her throat mostly soothed but still thirsty. Yang laughed and bent down to grab another water bottle. She placed it in front of Blake, who was significantly more calm when drinking it.

Yang held the meat kabob in front of Blake again when she finished the second bottle. Blake grabbed it with a quiet "thank you" and ate the kabob voraciously. Yang laughed again, leaned back in her chair and ate her own kabob of skag meat.

Blake laid her head on the table in front of her. She couldn't remember the last time food, especially skag meat, tasted so damn _delicious_. She was beyond content, and desperately wanted a nap now.

"So, who's after you?"

Blake snapped her head up and stared at Yang, wide-eyed and beyond tense. Yang ate her kabob, her demeanor completely relaxed, and stared at Blake, nothing but a passing curiosity in her eyes. Silence settled heavily over them. Well, it was heavy for Blake. Yang was still sprawled in her chair, a small smile on her scarred face.

"What are you being all dodgy for?" Yang asked with a laugh. "It's Pandora, everyone is being hunted by _someone_. Besides, you were laying half starved in the sand, you were _definitely_  on the run from someone."

Blake relaxed minutely, swayed a little by Yang's logic. It _was_  Pandora. Blake was being paranoid for no reason. She wouldn't tell everything, but enough that could be shared without danger.

"Some assassins. I pissed off some semi-rich guy, and it turned out that he was rich enough to hire some ridiculously persistent high-grade assassins."

"Nice," Yang laughed. She took another bite out of her kabob and said through the food in her mouth, "How'd you piss that guy off?"

Blake smirked. "I blew up one of his factories."

Yang threw her head back and laughed, loud and bright. "I honestly wonder why people still put factories on Pandora, they always get blown up one way or another."

Blake chuckled a little. "Honestly."

Yang went to go get both of them another kabob of meat. They ate together in companionable silence and threw their skewers away in a trash can nearby. When they settled, Yang leaned on the table, getting closer to Blake and staring into her eyes.

"Alright, sand lady, you seem like an intelligent woman, so I'm gonna lay everything out right now, okay?" Yang said, suddenly serious but still with the ghost of a smile on her face.

There it was, the ulterior motive. Blake wiped her face with a napkin and sat up straight. She folded her hands in front of her and nodded.

"You look like a really capable person, that sword and sniper rifle on your back suggests it, as does all the dried blood on your clothes. I am in need of super capable people for a job, and before I go into details," Yang said, leaning her head even closer to Blake, "I need to know whether or not you're actually interested in sticking around. No harm done if you're planning on booking it."

Blake stared back at Yang, her eyes vibrant and intense. She really needed to move on if she wanted to stay ahead of the assassins, but how long would it be before she got to another town? She really didn't know if she could survive another period of being starved out, and she had a better chance of being robbed and killed by bandits than of meeting another kind person like Yang. Well, kind enough. She still had an ulterior motive, and everyone that lived on Pandora became ruthless one way or another. But she also gave Blake an out, and Blake didn't sense any insincerity from her. Plus, from the guns slung on her back and the odd yet dangerous looking gauntlets on her hands, she seemed more than capable of helping Blake out should those assassins find her. She also seemed like the type of person that would join in a fight just because she genuinely loved it, so Blake figured Yang _would_  help her with the assassins no matter what.

She opened her mouth to reply when a loud _boom_  shook through her. She stood immediately, hand going for her sword. There was a giant cloud of dust some distance away. She could see large pieces of the train rolling around on the ground and flying through the air.

"Ruby..."

She snapped her head to Yang. Her mouth hanged open and her eyes were wide. Tears made her eyes glisten.

Blake didn't know what to say. She thought about reaching out to Yang, when Yang's entire body tensed. Yang's eyes narrowed into a glare that promised murder. Her teeth clenched so hard Blake heard her teeth grinding.

"I will kill them all..." Yang whispered, "I will rip their heads off and beat everyone they have ever cared about with them..."

Blake's eyes widened. She felt a small shiver of fear go through her.

Yang spun around on her heel and marched back to her car. Blake stared after her, not knowing what to do. Yang ripped her car door open and slammed it shut just as viciously. She stabbed her key into the ignition and whipped her glare back up to Blake, who jumped just a little.

"You wanna stand there, or you want to rip some assholes apart?"

Blake swallowed. She still didn't have a whole lot of energy, and she was a little bit scared of Yang now. She still figured that it was safer to be near her though. She was sure Yang's glare alone would be able to scare off any assassins that were after her.

"Sure."

 


End file.
